Latest Blogs
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James Jones-Tinsley: Aiming for an advice-guidance sweetspot
As Nikhil Rathi is reappointed as CEO of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for another five years, the FCA has set out its strategic direction for 2025/26, with important implications for financial advisers.
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Lisa Webster: Maximising protected tax-free cash
While 2024 ended with a lot of doom and gloom in the pension world following the big announcement on inheritance tax (IHT), there was some good news that may have slipped under the radar of some advisers.
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Tilley: Is the age 75 trigger date now irrelevant?
Age 75 has been an important milestone in pension rules since A day in 2006. It was the latest age at which a compulsory annuity purchase was required (prior to Pensions Freedoms). It's arguably it’s long been an arbitrary line in the sand, noting that life expectancy has been on the increase for the last 20 years, but this trigger age has remained unchanged.
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Lisa Webster: Overcomplicated rules are a threat
It may be more than a year since the Lifetime Allowance was formally abolished but issues are still emerging from the mess made by rushed legislation.
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James Jones-Tinsley: Guided Retirement Duty could be game changer
During May, the Pensions Policy Institute (PPI), sponsored by The Pensions Regulator (TPR), concluded that defined contribution (DC) pension savers – including those in SIPPs, as well as in Workplace Pensions - require more guidance when choosing suitable retirement products.
Popular News
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TPT launches DC decumulation product
Workplace pension provider TPT Retirement Solutions has launched a DC decumulation product, which it said has been designed to simplify retirement income planning for savers.
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Workers in the dark about workplace pensions
Two in five, 43%, UK workers don’t know how much they are contributing to their workplace pension.
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1.5m workers can't afford to save into a pension
More than 1.5m UK workers say they cannot afford to save into a pension.
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Lisa Webster: To gift or not to gift?
Since the announcement that pensions are to be included in estates for inheritance tax (IHT) purposes the question of whether those with large pension pots should be giving some funds away has become increasingly common.
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Pension transfer times rose during tax year end
Simpler pension transfers took an average of just 11 days to complete in the lead up to the end of the 2024/25 tax year.
The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has declared 12 failed firms in default in April - including former major SIPP provider Berkeley Burke.
Carey Pensions, now know as Options SIPP, has claimed victory in the long-awaited Adams Case over who is liable for SIPPs investments.
Retirement solutions and platform provider Embark is planning a tie-up with Openwork, one of the UK’s largest adviser networks, which will see Embark's new Advance platform become the lead supplier to Openwork’s 2,000 advisers for five years until 2026.
Nearly half (47%) of 55 to 64-year-olds are unaware that deferring the State Pension can boost their retirement income significantly when they start to claim their pension benefits.
Many pension savers are missing this valuable ‘Financial Planning’ option when they retire, according to research from retirement specialist Just Group.
Deferring the State Pension payment can mean significantly higher state pensions with every nine weeks of deferral boosting income by 1% - equivalent to 5.8% more income for every 52 weeks of deferral.
However, just over one in 10 (12%) of those aged 65+ had deferred their State Pension with the figure higher among women (16%) than men (9%) and also higher among the semi-retired (22%) than fully retired (11%).
Just says with Coronavirus hitting financial plans many more could consider State Pension deferral to boost retirement income.
Stephen Lowe, Just communications director, said: “Deferring State Pension is an important option for the rising number of over-65s in good health and who plan to carry on working.
“It needs to be factored into people’s Financial Planning in the run-up to retirement so it is worrying that such a high number of people aged 55-64 don’t know that there is a degree of flexibility around when and how they take their State Pension.”
According to research by Just the appetite for State Pension deferral has waned in recent years with about 1m people currently receiving extra money as a result of deferral, about 25% fewer than the peak in 2004, according to Department of Work and Pensions figures.
With the full New State Pension rising to £175.20 a week from April, deferring for one year would result in
£10.12 extra a week – more than £526 a year.
Those who have started to receive the State Pension can defer payment once during retirement.
Most people tend to defer the State Pension for between one and two years but more than half defer for longer.
Among those who chose not to defer, 31% said it was because they wanted to stop working as soon as they could. A quarter (25%) said they would have had to defer for too long to make the weekly increase worthwhile.
How long after you were eligible did you defer starting to receive your State Pension?
Up to a year -15%
1-2 years - 31%
2-3 years - 26%
3-5 years - 19%
5-10 years - 8%
Source: Just Group
Financial Planners are no longer using cost as the main factor when selecting platforms, according to evidence in the latest Platform Report in the current Financial Planning Today magazine.
SIPP and SSAS specialist Talbot and Muir has launched a series of bespoke CPD-accredited webinars that can be tailored for individual firms of advisers and will be delivered by the firm’s business development consultants.